


Gay Marriage Through the Ages

by Hokuto



Category: Doctor Who, Final Fantasy VII, Historical RPF, The Man Who Was Thursday (novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Character of Color, Domestic, Established Relationship, Femslash, Fluff, Genderswap, Historical, Marriage, Multi, Romance, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 19:08:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hokuto/pseuds/Hokuto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A set of six short fics all dealing with gay marriage at varying levels of officialness, as a present for <a href="http://soda_and_capes.livejournal.com/">soda_and_capes</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gay Marriage Through the Ages

**Author's Note:**

> To marriage - a right that should be free for all, and one day, I hope, will be. For a visual reference of Angel (female Sephiroth), please go here: [link to a picture on DeviantArt](http://hokuto.deviantart.com/art/Premium-Heart-133229875).

Kasandra has been at the loom all day and into the evening, weaving dyed threads of crimson and gold together; her fingers ache and her back pains her as if she were an old woman already, and her eyes are strained from working in the torchlight, but as she cuts the threads and ties off the edges she feels only the steady glow of a work accomplished.

The other women have left long since, for meals and husbands and the other thousand duties of life. Kasandra folds up her handiwork carefully and turns to take up a torch, and starts back; Klytaimestra is at the door already, still in her queenly finery with her scepter in one hand.

Kasandra quickly hides the weaving behind her back, and says, "I'm sorry - have I missed dinner? I did not mean to, only I - I was working..."

"Yes," says Klytaimestra, "you have missed dinner; I rather wish I had, as well. A dull affair. Are you hungry?"

Kasandra nods.

"Sit, then; I have something of a treat," Klytaimestra says. "One of the landowners brought us a great cartload of them that have just ripened, he said that they should be of a sweet variety..." And from a deep fold of her robe she produces a round pomegranate of a deep and brilliant red.

Kasandra says, "Oh," as she fidgets with the cloth behind her, wrinkling it.

Klytaimestra draws a small bronze knife and begins to score around the fruit to open it. Lightly, she says, "It has been about two years since you were brought here, I think."

"Two years exactly," says Kasandra. She has counted every day.

"A goodly stretch of time," Klytaimestra muses, and the pomegranate splits beneath her hands. "Time enough to become a part of our household, and of the family - if you would consider Elektra and I family."

Kasandra takes her hands from behind her back, and shyly she drapes the veil that she has been weaving for days over her head. "I do," she says. "You are all the family and home that I have - if you will have me."

Silent, Klytaimestra gives her a handful of the darkly gleaming seeds. Kasandra eats them, counting: one two three four five six seven eight nine twelve, all the months of the year that she will stay with her wife.

 

*

 

There is nothing worse than to be a novice monk in love, unless it is to be a novice monk against one's will and in love with another novice who has, quite honestly, got the comprehension skills of a statue.

Gottschalk sits on the shore of the Untersee, pretending not to hear the bells calling novices and monks alike to prayers. He's sick of praying, sick of the monks, sick of Reichenau. He only wants two things, and one of them is to go home and not be a novice anymore, and the other...

Walafrid plops down on the grass next to him, slightly out of breath, and says pompously, "You ought to be at prayers."

"So ought you," he replies, but if he can't have anything more at least he has this; he leans on Walafrid's round shoulder and looks across the water and says nothing, and neither does Walafrid. They can talk for hours about everything under the heavens and they do so often, but they can also sit together for hours and never say a word, which is perhaps the better gift, especially for monks in training.

At nineteen years old, this is all Gottschalk knows of love, and it's not enough. Walafrid has made life at Reichenau bearable, but it isn't going to last...

"Magister Wettin said you were going back to Fulda soon," says Walafrid.

"Magister Wettin is a gossip," Gottschalk says, and throws a rock into the lake. "But yes. Magister Hrabanus is to be made abbot, and he wishes me to return to Fulda, lest my continued absence impoverish the monastery. Or something." He adds, with great feeling, "I hope Fulda sinks into the earth and Hrabanus goes to hell." He never wants to go back; if he can't leave the monks then at least may he never leave here, the calm lake and quiet gardens and Walafrid ever at his side, squint-eyed and warm-hearted and just a little bit dense.

"That would be a bit of a shame," Walafrid says placidly, "I am looking forward to seeing it."

Gottschalk looks up at him. "What?"

"I asked Magister Wettin if I might go and study with you," says Walafrid, beaming down at him. "One doesn't get a chance to study under Magister Hrabanus every day, you know. It is an amazing opportunity for me, the magister said."

Gottschalk doesn't know what to say, but he can't help smiling back, joy welling in his heart; then he throws his arms around Walafrid, nearly knocking him over, and exclaims, "Why didn't you say so, you awful fool - and may I never say another word against Magister Wettin! I am so glad..." His voice is cracking like a boy's again, with tears or happiness he scarcely knows.

Walafrid just laughs, and starts patting around his robes. "Well, I am glad too; it would be very lonely to stay here without you... Oh! Here they are - I have made us a bit of a present, to celebrate." He holds out on his palm two round wooden rings, of a rich red wood polished to a wonderful smoothness.

Gottschalk takes one and turns it over in his fingers, marveling at its fineness and the warm color of the wood. "They are lovely things," he says carefully, "but - why a ring?" It couldn't possibly be...

"It's a symbol," Walafrid says, and takes Gottschalk's hands in his. "You know. Of - this and that."

And as they kiss, Gottschalk realizes he has never been so happy to be wrong.

* * *

He is sitting in the cell at Hautvilliers, waiting for salvation, the mercy of God, death, anything, when the letter comes. His spirits no longer lift at such things; they have brought no hope before, and he does not expect this one to be any different.

But he unrolls it anyway, a little scrap of parchment with a faded bit of Augustine on the other side, and his eyesight becomes blurred with tears at the familiar script in which is written only _habeo anulum meum habesne adhuc tuum_.

_No_, Gottschalk cries into his hands, _No, my dear, I lost it..._ But in his heart it is still there, wrapped around his finger, as warm as Walafrid's smile.

 

*

 

'Get married?' Eva Bull said as she tasted the stew. 'What a silly notion.'

'It isn't silly at all, if you would only consider it carefully,' Gabrielle insisted, and truly, when Eva thought about it logically it did make a sort of sense. Half of Syme's things had migrated into Eva's flat, they were forever doing each other's housekeeping, and more nights than not Gabrielle would insist that she was too tired from work to walk up one more set of steps to her own rooms. It was a comfortable sort of relationship and Eva would not trade it for the world, but to take it so far as marriage...

'No; it is out of the question,' she said, and gave the stew a vigorous stir. 'For one thing I don't know how you think we'd do it. No church would let it pass, not even if one of us dressed as a man - don't think for one moment that I will even entertain the notion, and you could never pull it off.'

'Then we won't go to a church,' said Gabrielle, throwing up her hands, 'or even to a judge for a license - but there is nothing to stop us from a promise of our own. Eva, do you recall what I told you after the chase, about the way it felt to find that Vivian was on our side - that I was not alone among the anarchists?'

Eva covered the stew so it might simmer in peace, and sat down at the tiny kitchen table. 'Of course,' she said, 'I could hardly forget - it gave you both such courage that you came to speak to me at home, and it was a funny sight indeed, to watch the pair of you lying your heads off and tapping your fingers at each other until you convinced me to take my tinted glasses off. And it must have felt jolly well brilliant to be three instead of two.'

'Well, yes,' Gabrielle said, 'but it is more than that - to be a company of three is wonderful, but it is nothing like the difference between being one and being two. Two people together are a thousand times more than one person alone...' She hesitated, then sat at the table too and placed her hands over Eva's. 'And,' she said, 'to be two together with you is to be infinitely more than with anyone else. I do not know how to say it any more plainly without embarrassing myself.'

Eva Bull sighed. 'Well, all right then,' she said. 'Add a bit of pepper to the stew, would you?'

 

*

 

"We could just elope," suggested Mehmed. "It's quick and relatively painless, especially if you're both drunk first... I eloped with a French girl once - don't give me that look, you were in Siberia, she left me when she realized I couldn't speak French, but anyway it went off like that, no trouble at all."

"No," Radu said, somehow managing to scribble out possible seating arrangements while glaring.

"Or not get married at all," Mehmed said. "That's really easy, we've been doing that for years. Think about it, Radu. If we get married we'll have to worry about anniversaries - are we supposed to count from the day we met? There aren't enough kinds of metals and jewels in the world for that many anniversaries, not even if you count those new radioactive ones with the funny names."

"NO," Radu said. "None of the packs will respect us if we don't have a real ceremony - do you even realize how long it took me to find a bi-religious werewolf pastor in Iowa? We are getting married _properly_ and we're doing it as soon as we can before he gets stoned to death or something, and that's _final_."

Mehmed grumbled something into the couch.

Radu sighed, put down the pen, and went to sit next to him, leaning on Mehmed's back. "Besides," he said, "if we don't do a real ceremony, we can't invite my brother."

Mehmed turned his head and said, "Why in all the hells do you think I would even want to invite Tsepes to -"

Radu put a finger to his lips to hush him and smiled a family smile. "Think about it, Mehmed."

Mehmed thought about it.

He began to grin. "All right - but I'm designing the invitations."

"You can't put pornographic calligraphy on them. _I mean that_."

* * *

The RSVP card from Vlad's invitation came back with a giant, jagged X on one side, and a note from Annika on the other, politely explaining that after Vlad had stopped threatening to put every priest in Iowa on a stake and set fire to the entire state, he had in fact graciously consented to attend the wedding on the conditions that a) Mehmed take Radu's name, b) convert to the Christianity of his choice, and c) use Vlad's mother's wedding ring, after Vlad had gotten it reshaped and cleaned up.

In smaller, hurried-looking handwriting she'd added: _Just elope!_

Mehmed looked at Radu with deep, soulful brown eyes.

"Oh, _fine_," Radu said. "But you're still taking my name."

 

*

 

Tifa knew she shouldn't have gone into the jewelry store; it was only making her feel worse. She leaned on the display case and stared sadly into its depths, where rows of rings met her gaze.

Everyone knew that the fifth anniversary was the materia anniversary, but it seemed like only Tifa knew that this meant you were giving your spouse a bit of someone's dead soul to wear on your finger, and even Tifa didn't know exactly who was supposed to give the ring if you were both women. Maybe both partners were? Not that Tifa was going to get Angel a materia ring _anyway_; there couldn't be a worse gift...

There was one the exact Mako green of Angel's eyes. "It's not fair," Tifa said, and when the store clerk gave her a look she looked right back. Tifa's look had a war, two years of dealing with Cloud, and five years of marriage behind it; the clerk lowered his eyes and went back to texting on his phone.

She sighed and left the store. On the way home she punched out two muggers and dragged them to security headquarters; she ended up passing by another store twice, and the second time she stopped, gave the store a good look, and went in.

* * *

There was a new bowl of potted flowers on the old bar's top. Tifa smiled. Angel couldn't stand cut flowers; Tifa would never say so, but sometimes she thought that when Angel had been assembling herself in the Lifestream she'd picked up a touch of Aeris's DNA along the way. She called out, "I'm home," and from upstairs came Angel's voice, "Welcome back - would you come help me dress?"

Tifa ran up the stairs and into the bedroom, where Angel was frowning into the shared closet. "Nothing _looks_ right," the silver-haired woman complained, and turned around to give Tifa a quick kiss. "We never should have made reservations at that place, all of my best dresses are too - leather."

"Well, we both look good in leather," said Tifa. "Wear the one with the cutout and the diamond necklace I repossessed from Yuffie last year, you'll be dressy enough for anywhere. Close your eyes - I've got you an anniversary surprise..."

She closed her eyes, and Tifa slipped something small and rounded into her hand. Angel opened her eyes and looked down... "A new phone?"

Tifa collapsed on her shoulder. "I know it's an awful gift," she said, her face the dictionary definition of woebegone, "but you've been using Cloud's old one for ages and the store was having a two-for-one sale on the latest model, so I could finally get Marlene a new one... Don't tell her, it's for her birthday. Barrett did come get her and Denzel today, didn't he?"

Angel laughed; she had the loveliest laugh, deep and rich and nothing at all like her old laugh. "Of course he did," she said, "an hour later than he should have, of course... But yes, they're off for the week. And it is a really excellent gift - a bit funny, considering what I have for yours..."

Tifa perked up. "Oh, you shouldn't have - what is it?"

Angel reached into a pocket of her suit and held up a ring - red and polished and glowing.

Half-hypnotized, Tifa took it and said, "It's summon materia - Angel, you shouldn't have, I really mean it, how could I possibly wear something like this... And summon materia costs half the earth, how could you -"

Angel wrapped her arms around her wife and said comfortingly, "I didn't spend a gil. I made it myself - there are still thousands of old Mako pipes all over the city that Shinra built, I found one and pulled out just a little bit that still had some me in it."

"Some you?"

"It is a summon materia," Angel said, resting her head on Tifa's shoulder. "And this one summons me. No matter where either of us are, if you use it, I'll come..."

Half-teasing, Tifa said, "And you're sure you'll be the one I summon, not - the old you?"

"I am absolutely," said Angel, kissing her, "positively," another kiss, "one hundred percent," a third kiss, "perfectly certain. Now - what are _you_ going to wear to dinner?"

 

*

 

Everyone's dead, the Daleks are one floor down and coming up fast and Jack's only got two guns left and he yells at the comm, "Doctor, how long till the delta wave's ready?"

"About three minutes," the Doctor says, sounding far too manically calm in that very special Doctor way he has. "Have you got any particular wedding customs where you come from?"

"What?" Jack says, and in case that's not enough, "No. What? What the hell are you asking that for?" He almost adds a _do I_ look _like the marrying type to you?_ and decides that'd probably be a waste of breath. It's his damn jawline, it misleads people every time.

"I just wanted to check, you see," says the Doctor over hissing sparks, "since we've not got a lot of time to accomodate any customs just this moment. Do you, Captain Jack Harkness, take me, the Doctor, to be your lawfully wedded husband, sickness, health, till death do us part, etcetera -"

"I do!" Jack shouts back. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Fantastic! I, the Doctor, do take you, Captain Jack Harkness, to be my lawfully wedded husband, richer, poorer, till death do us part, etcetera, amen!"

The door in front of him is beginning to slide open and Jack can see the bronze gleam of dalekanium beyond it. He says, "You're only doing this because 'till death do us part' is going to be about two minutes, right?"

"Nope," the Doctor says; Jack can hear him grinning through the comm system, that wide and weirdly brilliant grin, one of a kind, just like the Doctor. "I'm doing this because I want it to be a lot longer than two minutes. I'm not into gold rings, so you know - I want something silver with a great big stone, very flashy, in an old-fashioned sort of style..."

The door slides the rest of the way into the wall, revealing three Daleks.

"Got it," Jack says, "I now pronounce us husband and husband," and opens fire.


End file.
